


Nought may endure but mutability

by Pen Dumonium (megyal)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Community: smut_fest, F/M, Other, Shamanism, Shapeshifting, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/Pen%20Dumonium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interconnected stories from four prompts:<br/><i><span class="small">i. (Omega) A wererat is having trouble adjusting living with werewolves. Often looked down upon as dirty and gross he finds common ground with a werewolf with a missing leg.</span></i></p>
<p> <i><span class="small">ii. (Syrinx) Tree folk tend to live alone, but a willow tree turns herself into a human to be with him after admiring him for so long, it was only when she started pining for him did she realize another tree person was in love with her. Can she choose between the oak boy and the human? </span></i></p>
<p> <i><span class="small">iii. (Shaman's Drum) shamans have the ability to shape-change, one manage to turn into an orca but he never changed back. Years of swimming with a pod, he finally returns back to land, only to find it alien and strange, his wife was waiting for him all this time. Can he change her an orca to be with him forever?</span></i></p>
<p> <i><span class="small">iv. (Choir song) A seryph has wandered the celestial plans for years and wants to be human, their only lover is a cherub who is resistive of their change (Metaphor on gender transitioning).</span></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nought may endure but mutability

**Author's Note:**

> This had been written for [teacup_werewolf](http://teacup-werewolf.livejournal.com/) as part of the Shifters Round on the [Smut Fest](http://smut-fest.livejournal.com/) on LJ. I wish I had written more smut, but oh well! The recipient had made a special request for a trans*man in their gift. Thanks so much to [txilar](http://txilar.livejournal.com/) for the quick beta; any remaining mistakes are all my own.
> 
> If there's anything that reads as offensive or off to you, please don't be afraid to call me out on it. For one section, I used gender-neutral pronouns ( _Spivak_ ) from [this website](http://genderneutralpronoun.wordpress.com/).

_Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;_  
Nought may endure but Mutability.  
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mutability" 

**i. Omega**  
Bell settled himself into a shadowy corner of the long, tall but very narrow central hall, watching as the hunters streamed in. They huffed and snapped at each other in a familiar fashion, clutching slabs of meat. Bell's gaze darted from side to side, making sure that no-one bared their teeth at him. Laughing and talking loudly, the hunters handed over their kill to those who set them on the wooden tables and went about preparing it with quick flashes of their knives. The firelight reflected off the blades and flickered across the walls. 

"A good hunt," one of the cooks, a burly male caled Rockhaim, observed. He flipped over a slanted ladder of ribs and sliced deftly. His mate, Emmie, a stocky hunter, rested her big hands on his hips for a moment before gathering his long, straight hair and twisting it into a quick braid. Bell noticed that there was still blood underneath her sharp fingernails, but she made sure not to scratch Rockhaim's already scarred brown skin.

"It was very good," she said and rested her chin on his shoulder. "This should last for a few weeks."

The other cooks and hunters agreed. Bell wondered if he could sneak out without catching anyone's eye. He hadn't meant to get stuck in here. It was simply warmer here than the holding of his family.

He saw his mother, Jackie, walk in through the arched doorway. Her catch was small, but still received with appreciative cries. Her gaze landed unerringly on him in the corner. Jackie's eyes glowed a faint blue from the hunt, but she blinked that effect away quickly. She set her own kill and stepped away so that a cook could get to it, and then jerked her head in Bell's direction. Jackie turned on her heel and walked out of the central hall.

Bell took a deep breath. He shifted from this upright form into his animal shape, but he was not a large and shaggy wolf like the others. Bell's form was that of a large rodent with two sharp teeth and a long, wormlike tail. His fur was very long, and an inky shade. He scrambled out of his corner, but a hunter spotted him and tried to step on him, their hairy foot barely missing his flank.

"Get out of here!" that hunter yelled, and chased after him. " _Nasty_."

Bell dodged to one side and squeezed under a plank with a ragged end. The rough edge scraped at his back and he wriggled out into the frost-covered darkness, darting past the short end of the main hall and rounding the corner. In front of him, groups of buildings marched down a slope, their round thatched roofs gleaming darkly in the thin moonlight. 

Some houses had a large yard around them, and some didn't; the generally accepted rule was that greater the space around a clutch of huts, the more affluent a family, and the greater the influence of that inner pack to the greater pack. Bell followed Jackie's scent down to a holding which held about four small huts, all fenced in closely by a sturdy wall of thorny bushes. He hopped past the main house, in which a few individuals were speaking in murmurs, and walked around to the back buildings. Jackie was in her own home, the door standing slightly ajar. She smiled absently when Bell slipped in, the lines deepening at the corner of her eyes. He settled on his haunches next to the stool on which she sat. In the sputtering light of the lamp, he watched as she carefully wiped blood away from her hands with a scrap of cloth.

"How are you, Bell, my sweet?" she asked in her low, rough voice. Bell didn't shift to answer; he simply sidled near her leg and rubbed the side of his body against her skin. "Good day?"

Bell huffed and squeaked; a good enough day. He'd managed to keep out of the way of Irma, the matriarch of Jackie's family, and Roam, the mate Irma had chosen for Jackie. Roam didn't sleep in Jackie's bed on a regular basis, and for that, Bell was grateful. Roam smelled like rancid animal-fat nearly all the time.

Jackie set aside the cloth and reached down to scritch behind Bell's ears. Her nails were a little longer than usual, and needed to be trimmed, but she was gentle as usual.

She was always gentle with him. She had found him when she was sixteen, and out on her first true hunt. Bell's mother and a sibling had been captured by a pair of harriers, killed and carried off to nests. She had found him cowering alone under a sprawling thatch of some berry plant. He'd bitten her, but he had only been a baby at the time. He hadn't understood that she was trying to help him until she finally tucked him into the folds of her shirt and ran, on human feet, back home.

As gentle as Jackie was, she also had a surprisingly stubborn streak that the rest of the pack read as insolence. Bell didn't remember much of that time, but there had been a lot of barking and shouting and snarling, and someone had actually grabbed him and tossed him back towards the forest at one point. Jackie had rushed to collect him again, and kept him close for a very long time. She had even taken him on a few hunts with her, Bell gripping onto the brown fur on her back as she raced after prey.

There was a haphazard pattern of raps at the door and Jackie straightened up. Bell shifted to his human form at the same time, because he could smell Roam at the other side, and his rat-form seemed to annoy and anger his mother's mate even more than it seemed to affect anyone else. Bell remained crouched down beside her seat, watching as Roam pushed the door open and entered with a triumphant air. He carried a large pot, its sides roughly beaten into a pot-bellied shape. In it was a fairly large quantity of cooked and dried meat; the dried meat must have been from the previous hunt. Between the fingers of one hand gripping the pot, Roam gripped the mouth of a sack made from an old net. Dark loaves of bread stacked atop each other against the woven ropes.

"I've gotten you dinner," Roam said with his particular brand of oily triumph, as if it hadn't been Jackie that had brought it the greater part of the family's meal. Jackie gave him a tight smile and then Bell could feel as her gaze slipped down to him. Roam's smile hovered at the edge of ingratiating and threatened to tip over into a snarl. Bell made no attempt to alter his own expression; Roam wanted to mate with Jackie, right now, and it wouldn't help to upset him in this moment. If they got into some kind of argument, Jackie would side with Bell (she always would) and Roam would take it out on Bell sooner or later. Jackie had already had a litter with Roam, a sturdy bunch of four pups who didn't know much of anything and liked to tangle in Bell's legs whenever they saw him. They stayed with Irma, mostly. In a few years, they'd act like the rest of the pack.

Finally, Roam's face smoothed out again into a wide smile and he dug around the pot with his grimy fingers. He withdrew a narrow, bony leg, throwing it. Bell caught it before it could hit him in the face, fumbling with it in fingers that didn't seem to uncurl quickly enough. He barely managed to hold onto it, staring down at the gristle and strips of muscle. Bitter bile tried to worm its way upwards and Bell gritted his teeth against the sensation. Roam tossed a loaf of bread as well, and Bell did a better job of catching that one.

"Don't go too far," Jackie said as Bell got to his feet with his armful of dinner. Bell tried to smile at her, but Roam bristled, apparently at the end of his patience; Bell ducked outside quickly. Outside the family compound, Bell paused and then made his way past the neighbouring yards, his step light over the cold ground. The line of buildings stopped some distance away from the forest proper, except for one building. This structure was made of stone instead of timber, built right against a rocky outcropping. An old, broad-leafed tree grew out of the top of the outcropping, its roots gripping the rock as if it was on the verge of falling off. It was a short, stocky thing, bending under the weight of its age; the broad crown seemed to brush the top of the building below it.

There was no door, and Bell could see a thin flicker of firelight brush over the packed stone walls. He walked in without calling, and peered around the cramped space.

A wolf lay on a pile of furs, gaze bright and watchful. It didn't move when Bell placed the food on a low table, but when Bell sat down on another pile, it stretched out its limbs and yawned widely. It had no left back leg. 

"Here's dinner, Tens." Bell jerked his chin in the direction of the food. The wolf yawned again, and then shifted into its human form. Tens squinted at Bell and scratched under her left breast. She curled the toes of her right foot and then sniffed.

"I got some already." Her voice was scratchy with sleep. Her black hair stood up all around her head, a rough halo. "Rockhaim brought it." She shifted over and pulled out a loaf right from under where she'd been sleeping. "Here, I saved the bread for you."

Bell grimaced and smiled at the same time. Tens shrugged and let the loaf fall, then shuffled around nakedly. She felt atop a stone shelf that stuck out over her head, and grasped a large pitcher of fermented drink.

"Yes, good," she warbled, settling back and putting the pitcher right up to her head, even though there had been a wooden cup next to the pitcher. After a few noisy gulps, she set in the pitcher in the crook of her legs, wiped at her lips with the back of her hand and grinned at him. Bell felt his own grin widen in inevitable response, and Tens' expression gained a feral edge.

For a moment, Bell had a hint of what she had been like before she lost her leg. He didn't know her birth-name, but she had once been good enough to earn a title like all the best hunters: Tens of Thousands, so called because of her many kills. Jackie's hunting name was Faster than Fire, because she had once outrun a bushfire to warn the village of oncoming danger. Bell had been prouder than anything on the day his mother had been bestowed her special title by the head alpha.

Tens was the youngest child in Rockhaim's family, and probably still held a very soft spot in his heart; he still kept her fed even after the rest of that group had abandoned her. Bell respected that, but he had no love for Rockhaim; the burly cook liked to throw rocks at Bell, for 'target practice'. He really couldn't hit the broad side of the central hall, but it was the thought that counted.

Bell thought it wasn't fair. He was sure Tens was still a great hunter, and it wasn't her fault that she had lost the leg. If the healer hadn't cut it off, the infection caused by a snake-bite would have spread to the rest of her body. The head alpha had forbidden her attendance at hunts, citing bad luck....the same way Bell's presence was proclaimed to be a harbinger of disaster. The few times that Jackie had carried him with her, no-one had known, and nothing bad had happened.

Tens put back the pitcher back on the shelf with surprising care, and then went up on her hands and knee. She crept to him in her winding, rolling way, and in a moment she was clambering into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. She bent her head close, and put her lips against his.

Bell parted his lips and sighed. Tens tasted like fermented corn, with that hard aftertaste, slightly sour. Bell deepened the kiss, pausing only when Tens' fingers pulled apart the fastenings of his large shirt.

"Wait," he said, grasping her wrists, but she was quicker and stronger than he was. Her fingers wormed under the cloth and plucked at the wrapping which bound his chest.

"No," he said and twisted away from her, gasping. If Tens removed the strips of cloth wrapped so tightly, he felt that he would lose all his breath.

"You're weird," he heard Tens say from above him and he realised that he had slid down onto his side, cheek half-buried in the furs. "You're just making it even harder for yourself this way, little rat." She looked down at him as if he was something she had just caught, interesting in its struggles but probably not very edible.

Bell glared at her out of the corner of his eye. It hurt to stare at her like that, and hot tears spilled out over the bridge of his nose. "Faster than Fire says if anything comes to you hard, it's worth doing." He couldn't use his mother's real name in front of someone who was not inner pack, and just the mention of her hunting title made Bell feel better and braver about himself. He pushed up back into a sitting position, and tried to fix the ties of his shirt.

Tens' hands, bigger than his and with darker skin, folded over his knuckles. He looked up, lips parted in surprise. She blinked at him slowly, like a sleepy pup, and said, "Wait. Sorry."

Bell blinked as well, faster than she had. "What?"

The oddly serious expression on her face sheared away to reveal a smirk. "Want me to help you come hard?"

"Ugh!" Bell tried to pitch her off, but she placed the rounded end of her shortened left leg against his belly, pressing down. Bell stopped struggling and narrowed his eyes.

"If you take off your shirt, I won't touch your wrappings," Tens said. "I promise."

She always promised that, and she always kept to her word. Bell couldn't figure out why they had to go through this all the time, but it probably was one of the few ways that Tens could amuse herself these days. Bell shook off her hand and carefully undid the other knots in his shirt, shrugging off the garment.

"Take these off, too." Tens plucked at Bell's loose trousers, her touch absent and persistent. "Let me see your sweet little dick."

"Don't put your fingers in me," Bell warned as he pulled the knots for his trousers as well. Tens raised one bushy eyebrow.

"In the first hole, or the second hole?" Her smile would seem cruel and mocking to someone who didn't know her, but there was the little twist to her bottom lip that spoke differently. 

Bell thought about it, even though they both knew the answer. "Not the first hole. The second one, if you can find some oil." 

Tens wouldn't look for any oil; and she would still want to put her fingers in there, dry and Bell would have to kick and pinch until suitable slick was found.

Bell took some time to work off his trousers, and Tens reclined, a roughly woven cloth wrapped over her shoulders as if she was the head alpha. She parted her legs and slid her fingers up and down her hairy slit, movements deliberate. She watched Bell with a lazy expression, even though her gaze seemed very sharp and bright.

"Finally," Tens groused as Bell crawled up between her legs. He braced himself above her, palming his own crotch. "Come on," she said and kicked him in the buttocks with her left leg.

Slowly, he pressed his pelvis to hers and rocked his hips. His nub slid up and against her damp cleft; Tens let out a shivery little moan as he pushed against her, getting into his rhythm.

"Yeah." She kicked him again and he grappled with that left leg, diminished in size but not in strength. She fought against him, silently, her mouth working as he slid against her. He'd seen her fuck others before, and she was loud and full of mockery. With Bell, she kept silent. He could smell her, strong like the good earth after a hard shower. Her thighs were tight against his hips, flexing with every thrust and buck. Her skin was slick and when he bent to take one hard nipple in his mouth, he sucked _hard_. She grabbed a handful of his hair and wrapped it around her wrist; it was long and smooth enough to coil around her fingers, but it would still have knots afterwards.

She mumbled something, but Bell didn't hear properly. He stared down at her as she twisted and writhed underneath him, the strong line of her mouth trembling. He slid up against her a few more times, quick and slick, hunting after that clenching, shaky feeling low in his stomach. The feeling allowed itself to be caught almost reluctantly, and Bell squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

Tens let out a soft groan when he shifted from atop her, their release a damp secret between their legs. He tried to move away, he knew she didn't like it when he lay too close afterwards, but she rolled over and put an arm over him, effectively pinning him on his side. She nipped at his collarbone with her sharp teeth.

"You could give me a litter," Tens murmured and snuffled at his neck, tickling his skin. "Rat-wolf babies. Head alpha would hate them."

"I could ask the witch that lives by the willows." Bell swallowed hard. "She could make that happen."

Tens wriggled a little and then rolled up to straddle his stomach. "Let's go, then. We'll go ask the witch in the willows, and she'll make it so we have a litter. Come on."

"That witch is probably dead," Bell pointed out, laughing a little because it was impossible not to laugh around Tens of Thousands. "Dead, dead, _dead_. She probably couldn't change anything, anyway."

She huffed at him and in a moment she was dressed in her wild form, snout rubbing against his bound chest. His hands flew up to her head, but not to push her away; he rubbed behind her ears and smiled. He granted her lupine body further limits than her human shape. She bounced away from him and barked, hurrying back to poke her nose under him and try to roll him over. Bell laughed again, and then shrank down to his smaller form so he could burrow under the furs, paint himself with her scent as he hid.

She tore through the clothing with mock-ferocity, and Bell squeaked as he was discovered. He scrambled to her closest forepaw and raced up her leg, up the muscled curve of her shoulder and settled in the middle of her back, just as he used to do with Jackie. She stood there for a moment, breathing quietly and then dashed out the doorway with a speed that belied her lack of one complete limb.

Tens wasn't as fast as his mother, and her gait was very different; not uncomfortable, but she had a completely different sense of balance, her tail moving in quick counterpoint. She moved through the shadows under the trees, and Bell hung on with clawfuls of her fur, gulping in cold doses of the night air.

She stopped when they reached near the small lake surrounded by willows, her paws digging up the heady scent of the soil as she scrambled to a halt beneath a singular oak. Bell peered over her shoulder at the figure underneath the trees, curled up at the roots in deep sleep. A human, but not a witch. A male, leaves falling around an unlined face. His clothing was clean and bright. Not a destroyer of wolves and land then, just a wanderer or a hermit. The pack probably wouldn't bother him, as long as he kept out of their way. This place was known as a haunt of humans as well, so the pack didn't hunt near this side. Humans too often left their aggravating scents of iron and smoke.

Tens glanced over her shoulder at Bell and he sniffed at the air, scenting the moonlight. They both watched the sleeping boy for a few moments and then Tens turned away, quietly skirting the dreaming space of the willows.

**ii. Syrinx**  
Out of the corner of its awareness, the willow noted the departing presence of the rat and the wolf and dismissed them. The boy sprawled across its roots was very still, his eyelashes long against the lovely skin of his cheek. The willow could feel the steady rhythm of his heart, and the frailness of his skull against its bark. The human was very warm. It ruffled her leaves and waited for him to wake.

This boy, amongst others, made the journey from their distant village to offer prayers and make requests to unknown spirits on behalf of their people. This willow did not listen to the beseeching voices of the other travellers; she only heard the quiet voice of _this_ one, whom she had watched grow from a small curious boy with brown curls and dark, solemn eyes. His little fingers, dark as roots, would clutch the dusty robes of his elders whilst they prayed and rocked their bodies to the answers they received. The older ones called him Stas. 

Stas was apparently now old enough to carry the prayers of his people by himself, and hear the answers. He seemed to be the only one who still walked the prayers to the trees. His were the only prayers that the willow would pass on to the wind; generally, it did not know what else to do with the invocations.

The boy stirred, and then opened his eyes. This time had been tiring, for he had clawed at his own throat and shouted many coarse, unknown words as he knelt on the moist earth. He blinked up at thick layer of leaves above him, and smiled. The branches of the willow trembled in response. Stas sat up, and the heavy cloak he had been using as a blanket slid down to his lap. He took it in his hands, his narrow, long hands, and shook out the leaves and small bits of grass that had blown on it.

He threw the cloak around his shoulders as he stood up, and pulled the round-mouthed hood over his head, hiding the riotous delight of his hair. He pressed his palms together and then rested his broad brow against the steeple of his fingers.

"Thank you, great ones, for the gift of this tree and for all your wonders, seen and unseen." 

His pack had served as a pillow. He lifted this and placed it atop his head, walking away with his neck and back held straight. The willow watched him as he walked away.

_Great ones_ , it tried. _Let it be so I can watch him always_.

_Hey. Willow._

In annoyance, the willow focused on the direction of this new, softly persistent tone. The land sloped up from the lake, and at the ridge of it, a solitary oak tree stretched tall against the spreading dusk. 

_What?_ the willow huffed.

_Don't asked for that_ , the oak murmured. 

The willow fluffed its leaves indignantly, and thought just a bit harder. It thought about the shape of its trunk, the spread of its branches, and the secret whisper of the wind in its leaves. The dusk curled into the quiet of star-filled night, and the willow asked spirits it had never spoken to about songs it did not know. Days and nights passed along the roots of the willow. The world seemed larger and and more full of shadows. The spinning of the earth, once always a comforting movement, became less pronounced.

_Don't do that_ , the oak pleaded. _Please_.

"Stop talking to me!" The willow cried out loud and clapped two hands over a mouth, shocked as the sound bounced along the surface of the small lake.

Hands...and a mouth. The willow stared down at itself. It was like Stas, except with mounds on its chest and something furry between its legs. The wind felt more cruel as it blew against this bark-less shape. The willow shivered and wrapped its new arms around its chest. 

_No_ , the oak moaned. _No, what did you do?_

Stas walked out from between two trees, murmuring to himself. He stared down at his feet as he stepped slowly, as was the habit of all those who walked the prayers. He lifted his gaze and then stopped so abruptly that he stumbled. The willow smiled hesitantly as he regained his balance; at this angle, the shape of his eyes was very interesting.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" His brow furrowed as he glanced from one side of the willow to the other, then glanced back at the willow with confusion in his regard. "There was...there was a tree right here, a willow--"

"Yes," the willow answered; its voice was croaky and low. "That's me. Willow."

Stas blinked and his stare sharpened, as if he was seeing the willow properly for the first time. The willow withstood his scrutiny without moving, looking back into his eyes. The light fell against the willow, but for the first time it couldn't do anything with the soft rays. This soft covering and the nest atop its head were useless. 

Stas reached up very slowly, taking his heavy pack from atop his head.

"I have another cloak," he said as he knelt down, his voice very gentle. He didn't look away from the willow as his hands dug around his lumpy pack. "My sister Shura made a new one for me."

" _Sister_ ," the willow murmured, tasting the word along its tongue.

"Yes." His eyes were so dark. "Sister. We have the same mother and father...people from whom we sprung like seeds or small seedlings. Like them, but not like them. She's my sister and I'm her brother." He had such a sweet voice, and the willow nodded, because it understood what Stas was trying to say. _Brother. Sister_. Interesting.

"Here." He pulled out a length of dark fur and held it out towards the willow. The willow looked at the cloak and then down at its roots. They were not connected to the ground anymore, and tentatively, it moved forward. To be sliding atop the soil like this made the willow's mind spin and it fell against Stas with a pained cry.

Stas wrapped the cloak about the willow and then stepped back. He stood for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the spot where the willow had once stood for many turns of the earth. He clasped his hands as if in prayer and then exhaled sharply. After a few moments, he let his hands fall to his sides.

"Do you want to come back with me to my village?" he asked, still looking at the ground. "Or...do you want to stay here--"

"No," Willow said, almost too quickly, even though Stas continued speaking. "No, I would like to go with you."

He broke off, tilted his head and looked at the willow out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry, if you answered, then please repeat what you said," he asked, such a soft request that the willow did as it was asked without thinking. 

_Please_ , the oak said, and Willow turned around to look at it, high up on the hill and so very lonely. _I...I know I'm not...just please._

Willow inhaled shakily. The oak sounded lost...sad. It had never spoken to Willow before, and now Willow didn't know what to do. Then, it looked towards Stas, who was staring up at the oak with a contemplative expression.

"I'm ready," Willow said, but its voice trembled. With determination, it grasped Stas's hand and held very tightly. For a long moment, Stas gazed in the direction of the oak. Then, he walked back in the direction from which he came.

"Aren't you going to offer prayers?" Willow stared back at the oak as it walked, but kept going, holding Stas's hand so tightly that it must have caused him pain, but he made no comment in regards to that powerful grip. He did, however, stop walking and gave the willow a questioning look. "Your prayers," the willow said again, feeling an unusual sense of urgency build up in this tiny trunk, fed by the wave of despair emanating from the direction of the oak. 

Stas shook his head. "Not today."

**iii. Shaman's Drum**  
Shura tied another handful of sweet-smelling flowers to the wooden arch and tried her best to block out the mumbled rants of the elderly woman who refused to leave her side today.

"Not natural," Blessing said, tugging on the spray of ferns which Shura had just arranged. Shura resisted the urge to slap that wrinkled hand away with the angry violence of which she, Shura, had once been famous. She would only earn a quiet stare of reproach from Stas, and she couldn't bear that today. Instead, she adjusted the ferns the way she wanted them and Blessing let out a sharp snort.

"It's not natural," Blessing said, a little louder this time. Shura did not answer. Blessing did not require another person in conversations, in any case. "Stas shouldn't get married. A shaman is special. Stas needs all the pieces of his soul to do his work, and if he marries that girl, he will give a good chunk of it away."

Shura folded her lips in and bit down on them so she wouldn't not answer.

"Do you know who this girl is?" Blessing hobbled around the other side of the arch and glared at the side of Shura's face. "This Willow girl that Stas brought back from his prayers. Do you know her? What is the name of her clan?"

"I don't know." Shura tugged at one slender vine so hard that it snapped, and she threw the delicately fragrant pieces to the earth, clenching her fist for a brief moment. The morning was warm, yet cloudy. Their village was very close to the sea. The water's surface was dull-grey and mostly still; a few white-caps rose with desultory grace. Shura pulled her attention away forcefully. She had spent far too many days gazing at the sea, and was sick of lt it.

"Willow is a nice girl," Shura told Blessing. Shura did think that the betrothed of her brother was nice, albeit odd. Willow seemed not to understand certain expressions of emotion, or turns of phrase. She liked to sleep outside, and she didn't wear shoes. She would appear out of seemingly nowhere for breakfast with bits of grass and leaves in her long, thick hair. She had a face that seemed very young and very old at the same time, round and dark and contemplative. Willow stared at Stas as if she'd never seen someone like him before. Shura knew what that felt like.

"She's nice," she repeated firmly. "No one here cares about her clan."

Blessing sniffed. "We _should_. I still don't think it's right. If he gets married, he'll probably go along just like Hope." Her eyes, already a rheumy grey, swum with tears. "He'll leave like Hope, and never come back!"

Shura stared as Blessing raised her hands and sobbed into her palms. She felt very little empathy; Blessing cried like this nearly every other month, as if she had given birth to Hope and had spent blood and tears to raise him. They were from the same family, yes, but they were distant cousins.

"Well, if he leaves like Hope, then that is simply how it is," Shura said, her throat tight. Blessing removed her hands from her face, staring at Shura.

"You're a cold woman," Blessing observed through her tears. "Cold. No wonder Hope left us."

Shura nearly hit her. It was very close, if Stas hadn't stepped around the corner of the small wooden building which was his home, and looked at her with his dark eyes as if he knew exactly what she wanted to do. Shura was older than him by fifteen years, and yet he always made her feel as if she was the younger one. She wrinkled her nose at him and he smiled.

"Stas!" Blessing hurried over to him, took his hand in hers. "Come look at what we did. Isn't it nice?"

Shura gritted her teeth. Stas carefully read the words as they rose from Blessing's thin lips. Then he tilted his head towards Shura again, and considered the wedding arch she had built by herself, no matter _what_ Blessing said.

"It's perfect," he declared and Shura tried not to puff out her chest in pride. "The arrangement of those flowers is wonderful."

Stas had been very particular in what blooms to use on the arch, asking quiet questions of the parent-plants before allowing Shura to pick them. Willow had padded behind them quietly on that particular outing, staring up at the sky as she'd walked. She hadn't stumbled either, simply curled her toes into the ground as she ambled along.

"Thank you," Blessing said, patting at his face with her greedy hands. Stas withstood her touch for far longer than Shura would have, and then gently grasped her wrists, pulling them down and looking at the frail joints in for a long time.

"Charm says you're not using the salve I made."

"But I am," Blessing protested, but it was weak. Shura put her hands in the deep pockets of her long skirt, just touching the handles of her tools. Charm had been Blessing's second partner; she had died four years ago.

Stas shook his head, even though he hadn't been looking at Blessing's mouth to grasp what she had said. "Not properly. I said you should use it every morning and every evening."

"I will!" Blessing hugged him around his waist tightly, almost dragging the waistband of his skirt down his hips. Stas hugged her back, which brought a sneer to Shura's lips. 

"Go, now," Stas told Blessing and she walked off down the hill towards the sea, a pleased smile creasing her face. Stas watched her until she disappeared around a corner and then looked at Shura. "Come, see a thing." He stepped around the side of his house again, this small and sturdy building which Shura had built as soon as he had been old enough. She followed, letting her right hand trail over the warm wood, absently checking for any planks which stood proud. Shura turned the corner and then stumbled over her own feet in surprise. 

The back of Stas's yard was a long, narrow space with a sparse covering of grass. It had no trees...well, no trees since the last time Shura had been around here. Now, there was a fully grown oak tree standing just beside the short fence, massive and imposing. Shura felt her jaw hang open.

Willow sat underneath the tree, wearing one of Stas's skirts and little else; a small circlet of woven vines around her ankle, and a few longer ropes around her neck. She leaned so that her cheek pressed against the trunk of the oak tree, talking in a low voice.

Shura gaped at the incongruence of this massive tree where one wasn't a few days ago. She turned to Stas, who had a small smile playing around his lips.

"How did this happen?" Shura asked, and her voice trembled with fear. She barely resisted the urge to turn on her heel and run away. "Is it...a shadow spirit?"

Stas shook his head, his curls whipping against his cheeks. "It's an oak tree," he answered, as if speaking with a small child. 

Shura swallowed back the rest of her fear and stamped one foot in annoyance. "I _know_ it's an oak tree. I can see that. Is it a _good_ tree or a _bad_ one?"

"What is good and bad to a tree?" Stas shrugged. "It's here to watch over Willow. It won't hurt us, as long as we don't hurt her."

"How do you know that?" Shura felt an annoyed sort of desperation as Stas shrugged once more. She glanced up at the strange oak tree with not a little fear. When she looked back at Stas, he had turned his head in the direction of the sea, his expression watchful.

Shura reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.

"It's time for the grampus to come back," he said. "Tomorrow, in the morning." He had an air as if she had harangued him with a particular question, and had reluctantly given a response. Shura pulled her hand away, clutching it close to her chest. Her heart felt as if it had gone wild underneath the armour of her breastbone.

Every year, Stas predicted the return of the big black-bodied fish with unerring accuracy. Shura would go down to beach each morning, and look for Hope. Every year, she waited and watched. The grampus would play in their families near the shore, exposing their white bellies as they leaped above the water. Shura would stare at them, wondering if one of them was Hope, if he knew she stood there squinting against the salty air stinging her eyes.

Shura reached out for Stas again, hesitating when he turned back to her with a very slight smile. She wondered if he remembered Hope; he had been so small when Hope had gone down to the beach that last time, and hadn't returned. Shura hadn't thought much of his disappearance, at first. For many months prior to that day, Hope went to sea and shed his human-skin with far more ease than which he did nearly everything else. It was a rare gift, she had been told when they'd been very young, this ability to strip his human covering and change it into that of an animal before putting it on again.

Shura hated that... _gift_. She hated it so much.

+

The steady, hollow sound of the small drum pulled Shura out of her sleep, blinking at the wooden rafters above her bed. She kicked at the light covers and sat up, scratching underneath her left breast. The day wasn't fully here as yet: the light coming through the slits between the window and the wall was yet grey. The rhythm of the drum accompanied her as she shuffled out the back door and out to the outhouse. After she'd finished, she got her bucket and retrieved some water from the wooden barrel which stood just beside the backdoor and had a quick wash. She laughed shakily as she poured the water over her head: it was very cold. 

Dressed in her favourite garment, a long, shapeless robe without sleeves, she threw the bathwater in her garden, looking up to where Stas stood on a massive rocky outcropping to the left of the steep slope on which most of the houses clung. The hem of his thick skirts fluttered against his ankles as he hit his drum, snapping the round stick against the stretched surface. The doors of the neighbouring houses remained stubbornly closed, but Shura could see sly flashes of candlelight as people shuffled around, preparing for the day.

Stas's drumming cut off in the middle of a heavy beat. Shura glanced up at him, idly curious, and found Stas looking right at her. The drum lay at an accusing angle on its side at his feet. He was pointing at her, jabbing in her direction with such urgency that his fingers shook.

_What?_ she mouthed, frowning at him. Stas kept pointing and then, obviously agitated, reverted to the use of his hands. Shura squinted.

The tips of index finger and thumb pressed together, the other fingers spread wide as the wrist rotated: that meant _turn around_. Palm down, cupped, fingers all pressed tightly together as the whole hand rocked from side to side: _the sea_.

Rapidly, Stas repeated the command. _Turn around, turn around. Look at the sea_.

Shura whirled around, her heart thumping rapidly. She gazed down the hillside occupied by the village, her gaze tripping across the zone of sturdy grass which grew almost right into the grey sand. A large black-and-white body, skin gleaming in the weak morning sunlight, lay where the waves broke over the beach. To see a grampus on the beach was not an unusual sight. These big blackfish liked to play odd games, flopping onto the beach in pursuit of their smaller, frantic prey, before sliding back their watery world with toothy grins. They taught their young this same behaviour, season after season. Yet, this was a lone grampus.

Shura found herself racing down towards the beach. Her chest hurt with every ragged inhalation, but she didn't stop running. The stubby grass caught at her robes; she ripped out of their grasp, and stumbled onto the sandy ground. It seemed as if the grampus moved further away as she hurtled towards it, but it was simply...growing _smaller_.

Its distinctive black-and-white colouring faded, replaced by a tone that was sickly grey, almost the same colour as the sands. Shura halted a few feet away from the tightly curled body. She looked at the arms, muscled yet thin, and the tangle of black hair. She considered the numerous scars on the familiar back and legs.

One of the arms moved from where it had been shielding the face. A brown eye gazed almost unseeingly up at Shura. The whites were bloodshot.

"Hope," Shura murmured and stood there gazing down at her long-missing husband. She did not move even when Stas ran up to her as well, throwing her a wide-eyed look before kneeling beside Hope. He pressed his hand to Hope's closest shoulder, pushing him over onto his back. Hope rolled over easily, breathing in short, fitful bursts.

Stas put his hand flat on Hope's bare chest, and waited a few moments. He then leaned forward and cupped Hope's jaw in both hands, inspecting that blank gaze.

"Infection, in his lungs," Stas finally said and sat back on his ankles. "In his head as well. Carry him home."

Shura hesitated as Stas stood up and bolted off in the direction of the steep hill, and his house. She collapsed to her knees in an ungainly fashion. She worked her arms underneath Hope's back and stood up, hauling him against her body. Hope was heavier than he looked, but Shura turned and stepped in the direction of her home with ease.

Willow waited at the door to Shura's house, standing on one foot. When Shura hurried inside, she realised that another bed had been made up beside hers, and a small fire crackled in the central fireplace. Shura placed Hope into the new bed and wondered if she should pull the woven blankets over his body. Willow pushed at her with impatient hands and tugged the blankets over Hope's hips.

Stas bustled in with an armful of clay jars and dried plants. Willow sidled over to him, watching over his shoulder as he set out his ingredients in an order that was only sensible to his eyes. He turned to Willow, who stared at his lips as he spoke; a deliberate mimicry on her part. Distantly, Shura wondered if she should be offended on Stas's behalf.

"Oak leaves," Stas said. "Two big ones."

Willow shook her head, urgent in her denial. Stas reached out and took her wrist in his hand.

"Two big ones," he repeated, and his tone was implacable. "Ask Oak nicely."

Willow groaned, and the sound was childishly truculent enough for Shura to actually smile.

"Two," Willow repeated, and shook her index finger at Stas, turning her hand over so that finger pointed up like a hook. Shura had no idea what the sign meant, except that Stas simply rolled his eyes in response. Willow slid out of the house and Shura listened to her quick steps against the beaten earth of the path.

Shura haunted her brother's steps as he prepared his sharp-smelling salves. Finally, Stas grasped her by the shoulders and forced her into a chair in one corner of the room.

"But what am I to do?" she cried, gripping the edge of the seat with cold fingers so that she would not bounce up again in agony of impatience.

"Just wait," Stas ordered. His gaze softened as she slumped back. "Hope will be fine. Just wait."

_I've been waiting so long_ , Shura thought. She hunched one shoulder up so she could wipe her sweaty cheek on the material of her robe and then settled back into the chair. _So long_.

+

"He's grown," Hope observed in a voice that sounded like water running across smooth stones. He ignored the round tray bearing his bowl of thin broth and a slice of bread on his lap, and watched Stas with his deep brown eyes. Shura took the spoon from his slack fingers, and dipped it in the bowl. Stas sat at a table which Shura had dragged over from the other side of the room, making notes in a small, battered book.

"The last time I saw him, he was barely able to write his own name." Hope opened his mouth for a spoonful of broth without looking at Shura. "Now..." he waved one arm in Stas's direction.

Shura didn't see the need to answer him; her heart felt too full for words at the moment. There was very little, physically-speaking, that seemed different about him. Stas's treatments had restored that grey-tinged pallor of his skin back to a deep brown tone. He still had that stocky torso, and those long limbs. His fingers were still just as long, and his eyes remained wide-set in his broad face. Hope glanced at her as if he felt the weight of her inspection, and his gaze was slight, almost incurious.

"How are you?" he asked, a soft smile touching his lips. Shura wanted to lean against his side, soak in the warmth of his good humour. She dipped the spoon into the bowl again, and guided it towards his smile.

"I'm well," she said, and her voice shook.

"That's good." He didn't seem to notice the tears welling up in her eyes, even though she wiped them away angrily. "And Blessing?"

"She's well, too." Shura couldn't hide her frown at the odd line of his questioning. "They're all fine. They've kept away while you've been healing, but they'll be in to visit in a few days."

Stas, who had raised his head to watch them speak, said firmly: "No less than three days. He needs more rest."

Hope laughed, and his mirth devolved into dry coughs. He waved one hand as they both got to their feet. "Is he always so forceful?" he asked and coughed again. Shura glanced at Stas, who shrugged lightly, even as his expression was set into stern lines which aged his face by a few years.

"When he needs to be," she finally answered and grinned at Hope's wide smile.

+

Hope didn't come into her bed, even though she asked. He declined, and turned his face towards the sea when he slept.

Shura told herself she should have _known_ when she rose to Stas's drumming on the third day of Hope's healing rest, and found the new bedding folded and placed in a corner. She flung herself out of bed and ran out without shoes and in her night-clothes, glaring towards Stas's outcropping in one fleeting moment. He didn't look down at her; surely he felt the heat of her silent accusation.

She hurtled towards the sea with betrayed anger falling in bitter tears down her cheeks. Already, Hope was waist-deep in the hateful water, a look of pleasure on his face. She screamed his name and he flinched, turning to watch her as she splashed in his direction.

"Don't go," she said, but it came out like a command, and not like a plea. She tried to soften her tone. "Hope, don't leave me."

"I can't stay here," he said. "I only came back because I knew I was sick, and I would get help here. That was selfish of me, but I couldn't help it." That last sentence was murmured in a contemplative tone, but without regret.

"Why are you _like_ this?" She clenched her fingers in the water, as if she would kill it in some way. "I waited! I _always wait_."

Hope's lips tightened. "I didn't ask you to wait, Shu."

_How cruel_ , Shura thought, staggered. To use that nickname with such ease, and wound her so deeply at the same time. Hope's expression seem to lighten and he held out a hand to her, silvery water dripping down his skin.

"You...could come with me," he said, and he used his smile on her like a weapon. "I've learned many things, and I could change you, too. We could be together."

Shura tightened her lips before speaking. "I can't be like that." She used one hand to motion at her sodden state. "This... _this_ is how I am. This is how I have to be, I can't change that."

"This is how I am." Hope didn't sound angry, or frustrated, nor any of the myriad of sharp-edged emotions rattling through Shura's veins. It seemed as if he'd had some version of this conversation with Shura every day, and now his responses were remote and mechanical. He stared at her with his changing eyes. "This is how I have to be."

He turned back the sea and sank down into the water. Shura lunged forward to grab his arm, but it was now a large black fin, growing even larger. Hope's body gained that monochromatic pattern. Shura could not appreciate the complex elegance of his transformation, nor the obvious delight as the large grampus rolled in the shallows. It flicked its tail at her as it headed towards the distant depths, where she could not and would not go.

Stas's drumming continued, steady and calm. Shura pressed her fists to her temples and screamed down at the water's surface. A warm wind hesitantly touched at her salted cheeks, and glided off in Hope's wake.

iv. Choir Song  
(AN: [gender-neutral pronouns](http://genderneutralpronoun.wordpress.com/) ( _Spivak_ ) : _ey_ laughed; I called _em_ ; _eir_ eyes gleam; that is _eirs_ ; Ey likes _emself_ )

Cheolim discarded the warm wind in which ey had clothed emself, staring down at eir hands. Ey had taken on a human shape, the long shimmering digits almost translucent in the eternal dusk of this plain. Cheolim cupped eir hands and marveled at the little pool of emotions which lingered. Human emotions were so strong. When ey had brushed past the woman standing in the water, the desolate rage from her had been acrid; and, from the man-who-was-now-animal there was a pure sort of sadness, elevated by the bursting elation as he swam away. Cheolim tilted eir hands and let the feelings ey'd collected slide off among the stars. Acheronim stormed into Cheolim's clear, quiet space and flashed a blindingly white glare. 

Cheolim murmured, "You're still angry," and Acheronim let out a series of sharp notes, obviously infuriated that Cheolim insisted on using human methods of speech. Cheolim carefully tamped down on eir own growing irritation, and turned to keep Acheronim in eir line of sight. This affectation, even more so than the speech, seemed to incense Acheronim further. Ey released a harsh flutter of melody.

Cheolim pressed eir lips tightly together. "But--"

Acheronim blasted noise like a discordant choir, and enveloped Cheolim in a hymn that had been used in the dawn of procreation. Cheolim gasped, and arched at the pleasure trickling down eir body, which solidified even as Acheronim struggled to stop that from happening. Cheolim clawed at air and light, bones forming from primodial stone, muscles and flesh knitting over the framework. Cunningly, Acheronim sang a song of undoing, and the human body from Cheolim's dreams scattered along the plains.

"It doesn't matter." Cheolim tried to free emself from Acheronim's angry and clinging refrain. "This place...I can choose to _leave_. I will _choose_ what I am."

Acheronim's mounting chorus was mulish. _Ey will not understand_ , ey sang. They had lived here together for years inestimable, happy and eternal. Why would Cheolim want to take all that away from Acheronim?

"Oh," Cheolim breathed and pressed eir hand to eir chest, shocked at the pulsing well of emotion ey felt there. Acheronim had always been a poetic sort of being, but it had never touched Cheolim this way. _This_ was a tearing sort of affliction, a heat of yearning. Yet, it was not like the breezy fire which fell under Cheolim's control. It was painful and it was exquisite. 

Acheronim's shimmering figure, which sometimes spanned across starlight (and, when ey was in a playful mood, snuck into a grey grain of sand), compressed into a shape which correlated to Cheolim's re-forming silhouette.

"You'll grow old," ey boomed with cold distaste for this manner of expression. "You'll die. Death is...unsavoury. You don't want that. None like us would want that!"

Cheolim cried out with a puny voice, without words, screaming into the void eir newly acquired pain and triumph. Acheronim shuddered back to eir normal form and Cheolim floated, soaking up the lack of infinite power and Acheronim's increasingly distant loss.

"I am--!" Cheolim cried and staggered underneath a row of silent willows. Scents assaulted eir flaring nostrils: sweetness of the earth, the thick strength of growing leaves, the pungency of some small dead thing. Eir skin prickled from the cold and Cheolim panted, and released a curious groan at the jab of tiny stones in the soles of eir feet. Cheolim raised shaking palms and stared down at the mapwork of dark lines. No wind and no fire obeyed eir motion, and ey clenched them to a bare, flat chest, heaving delirious sobs.

In the bushes a few steps to the left, something rustled. Cheolim swallowed back the remainder of tears.

A creature crept out of the shadows of the leaves, staring at Cheolim in an intent fashion. Its ears were high up at the top of its head, and pointed forwards as it stopped. The wind fluffed through dark fur. Cheolim started as another creature, far smaller and perched on the first creature's neck, peeped up above a ridge of fur, its dark eyes gleaming in the starshine.

The smaller creature leaped off and landed lightly on the leaf-littered ground. It scampered towards Cheolim, who cowered back, but between one teary blink and the next, this tiny thing with the pink whipping tail became a slender human. The human plucked Cheolim and lifted em up into a warm embrace.

"Careful, Bell." The larger creature now walked on two legs as well, even though one of those legs was far shorter. Cheolim pushed a thumb into eir mouth and blinked very slowly. "You don't know what it is."

"I know it's a _baby_ , Tens." Bell's tone was very sharp, but he was gentle as he bounced Cheolim's naked form in his arms. Bell tried to tuck some of the material of his own robes around the squirming little body. "All alone. I wonder where he came from?"

"We should leave it. It's probably not like us." Tens said and Bell snorted in pure indignation. Cheolim rested his little head against Bell's chest, sighing around his thumb as he listened to an argument crossing over his head.

Bell turned and walked off, Tens close at his heels. His gait was such a soothing, rocking motion; almost... like being with Acheronim.

Cheolim snuggled to sleep, and that name faded from his mind.

_fin_


End file.
